Windows Movie Maker Importing a video file from VHS

[Guest]

I am extremely new to the making movies part of things. Until I read an piece
on making movies for YouTube.com I didn't even know I could. My question may
sound simplistic but it is perplexing me and I hope the answer isn't too far
out of my range to understand.

How do I import a movie (be it on DVD or VHS) using my laptop computer
running Windows XP Home and Movie Maker 2.1 I am looking to save some of my
home movies straight from VHS on to the hard drive and them make copies for
my family. I only have the 3 standard RCA output jacks on my video cam and
VCR. My wife has a DVD of her Aunts vacation trip to Germany as well we
wanted to copy.

Is there a simple way to do this? What do we need and where do I hook it up?
I have 3 USB ports, a smart card slot, and a port that is used for a external
monitor, besides the phone and LAN ports. Suggestions? Help?

Thank you in advance!! ~ Jim

 

[John Inzer]

I am extremely new to the making movies part of things.
Until I read an piece on making movies for YouTube.com I
didn't even know I could. My question may sound
simplistic but it is perplexing me and I hope the answer
isn't too far out of my range to understand.

How do I import a movie (be it on DVD or VHS) using my
laptop computer running Windows XP Home and Movie Maker
2.1 I am looking to save some of my home movies straight
from VHS on to the hard drive and them make copies for my
family. I only have the 3 standard RCA output jacks on my
video cam and VCR. My wife has a DVD of her Aunts
vacation trip to Germany as well we wanted to copy.

Is there a simple way to do this? What do we need and
where do I hook it up? I have 3 USB ports, a smart card
slot, and a port that is used for a external monitor,
besides the phone and LAN ports. Suggestions? Help?

Thank you in advance!! ~ Jim

=================================
If your main goal is to make DVD copies
of your VHS home movies...you don't need
a computer. A DVD Recorder may be worth
a look.

Answers To Basic Questions About DVD
Recorders - Introduction and Index
http://tinyurl.com/ey5re

However if you plan to edit your movies...
Maybe the following links will give you an
idea of what's involved.

Capturing Analog Video
http://www.papajohn.org/MM2-CaptureAnalog.html

Download Video to Your
Computer with Windows
Movie Maker 2
http://tinyurl.com/4fpea

Convert VHS to DVD
http://www.signvideo.com/conv-v-to-d.htm

Copying VHS to DVD
http://tinyurl.com/dzcho

Now some info on DVDs...

Movie Maker 2 - Importing Video from Discs
http://www.papajohn.org/MM2-Importing-Video-Discs.html

Turn your Movie Maker 2
video into a DVD
http://tinyurl.com/4k97d

Wojo's Web...DVD Creation
http://tinyurl.com/g64gb

Burn a Movie Maker Project to DVD
http://tinyurl.com/644me

How do I make a DVD
http://www.rehanfx.org/faq.htm

Windows Movie Maker Forums
http://www.windowsmoviemakers.net/forums/

Movie Maker 2 and DVD Burning Software
http://www.papajohn.org/MM2-DVD.html

Burning DVDs With Windows Movie Maker 2
http://tinyurl.com/jqfz

How do I save my movie as a
DV-AVI file in Movie Maker?
http://tinyurl.com/8ktlw

--

*********Notice**********
This is not tech support.
....I am only a volunteer...

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you.

Proceed at your own risk.

John Inzer
Picture It! MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

 

[Guest]

Couldn't you just give me a simple answer? Like I said I need a simple answer
that I don't have to weed through a page and guess at what pertains to what I
need. Such as you will need, x, y, z and tada!

#1) What do I need to hook it up?
#2) Where do I hook it too?

The most common answer would be great.

Thanks for the suggestion about getting a DVD recorder, but why own 4 brand
new just out of the box laptops that can do the samething and not use them?
My idea is to get selected featurettes off sections of a few video tapes and
caption the scenes using MovieMaker. Also the importing DVD to laptop has
been a problem. I have a .avi file but Movie maker will not let me save it to
DVD as an .avi file.

Thanks again

 

[John Inzer]

Couldn't you just give me a simple answer? Like I said I
need a simple answer that I don't have to weed through a
page and guess at what pertains to what I need. Such as
you will need, x, y, z and tada!

#1) What do I need to hook it up?
#2) Where do I hook it too?

The most common answer would be great.

Thanks for the suggestion about getting a DVD recorder,
but why own 4 brand new just out of the box laptops that
can do the samething and not use them? My idea is to get
selected featurettes off sections of a few video tapes
and caption the scenes using MovieMaker. Also the
importing DVD to laptop has been a problem. I have a .avi
file but Movie maker will not let me save it to DVD as an
.avi file.

Thanks again.

====================================
Sorry, I thought I was offering you some useful
info. Maybe someone else can help you.

--

*********Notice**********
This is not tech support.
....I am only a volunteer...

Solutions that work for
me may not work for you.

Proceed at your own risk.

John Inzer
Picture It! MVP

Digital Image
Highlights and FAQs
http://tinyurl.com/aczzp

 

[LVTravel]

Jim, if you don't want to purchase a video capture card for the inside of
your PC, you can purchase a video "decoder/encoder" box that will plug into
your USB port. I purchased an ADS DVD Xpress DX2 at Sam's club (they should
be available elsewhere) for around $60. Uses either S video input or RCA
inputs. Comes with capture software that works really well and also Ulead's
Video Studio 9 SE DVD file editing and DVD writing program. I have captured
video from both VHS tapes and DVDs by simply playing them through the box
into the computer with the capture program supplied.

I have used WMM before but prefer the capture of this device to my ATI All
in Wonder internal capture device ($285) and the video editing is easier
than WMM (And it handles MPG files that WMM has problems with.)